‘Flappy Bird’ grounded as Vietnamese developer pulls plug on app

The “Flappy Bird” game is deceptively simple: Users tap smartphone screens to make a bird fly through gaps in pipes to score points. Anytime the bird hits a pipe or drops to the ground, the game ends. Fans post their scores on Facebook Inc. The Hanoi developer who removed his “Flappy Bird” game from app stores after becoming a global sensation and earning as much as $50,000 a day experienced the kind of success few individual programmers encounter. Nguyen Ha Dong, creator of the difficult game with a simple design that shot to the top of the most-popular download rankings, removed “Flappy Bird” from Apple (AAPL) Inc. and Google (GOOG) Inc. online stores this past weekend. He said in a Twitter Inc. message that the game “ruins my simple life.” Dong, who said on Twitter he has been a programmer for 10 years, didn’t answer repeated calls or text messages to his mobile phone today. Yet his success, viewed as an anomaly by industry insiders, could be a boost to Vietnam’s fledgling community of developers in an industry where revenue almost doubled in three years. “This is the success story the country needed,” said Than Trong Phuc, managing director of technology-focused investment fund DFJ VinaCapital LP in Ho Chi Minh City. “The money from Silicon Valley will come. It will come looking for the next ‘Flappy Bird’ — or the ‘Flappy Bird’ developer himself.” The success of “Flappy Bird” is almost unprecedented for an independent developer as the game…